Homeroom Mom

A couple of weeks ago, I received a flier from Lauren's school announcing the upcoming teacher appreciation week. It provided ideas for helping make sure all the teachers felt the appreciation of their students and their families. It encouraged parents to contact their homeroom mom to help plan special gifts and activities for the week. Well, I know this sounds pretty bad given it is May, but I honestly had no idea who the homeroom mom was for Lauren's class. Lauren participates in the carpool line so I just drive up and drop her off and zip through and pick her up. I check in with the teacher from time to time by e-mail just to make sure everything is going smoothly and to offer my help here and there. But, for the most part, I have not been very active in the school this year. Given I did not know who to contact for teacher appreciation week, I sent an e-mail to Lauren's teacher to request the contact information for the designated homeroom mom. Well what do you know....she said I was the homeroom mom! Oh my gosh. You have got to be kidding me. I mean I planned the Christmas party and I helped with the field trip etc...but I had no idea I was the homeroom mom! Surely there had to be other moms that were more involved that I was the whole year??? Yikes. That meant I was in charge of plans for teacher appreciation week. I hurriedly put together a list of parent e-mail addresses. Then I sent out a letter asking for monetary donations to purchase gifts for the teacher and teacher's aide. I called the office to get gift ideas (did you know they keep such things on records for just such an occasion???) Then it was off to the races to purchase gifts for the week. I share this with you all only because I know you can relate. And if you can't, it is just a reminder to really appreciate your homeroom moms. I don't think the title of homeroom mom is accurate. It truly is a challenging and time consuming job with little thanks. It deserves a much more lofty title. And guess what, no sooner had I wrapped up teacher appreciation week than I had to jump right into planning the end of year party- - which just so happened to fall on the same day as my long anticipated hair appointment. This mom stuff requires the organizational skills of a professional wedding planner -- and the accounting mind of a CPA! Who knew????